If you’ve only seen Edmonton’s Chinatown from the inside of your car, Chinatown Dining Week is an opportunity to live a little.

From Jan. 17 to 27, eight Chinatown restaurants are offering a special, two-course menu for $15. The restaurants represent a cross-section of Asian culture, from southern and northern Chinese cuisine, plus menus from Vietnam and India. And of course, there is bubble tea.

Freya Fu is one of the volunteer organizers of the event, which kicked off last year and has expanded in 2019.

Born in the Canton province of China, Fu immigrated to Edmonton in 2007 and immediately sought out the local version of home. Though she doesn’t live in the area, the Cantonese and Mandarin speaker visits Chinatown once or twice a week for grocery shopping and to visit the plethora of eateries. Whenever she travels to a big city, Fu also seeks out its Chinatown area.

She says that Edmonton’s Chinatown has a lot of potential.

“It’s physically located so close to the core of Edmonton, with the ice district and downtown, and transit is so convenient,” says Fu, whose day job is as engagement co-ordinator at the International Centre at NAIT.

Fu loves the fact that there is a lot to do in Edmonton’s Chinatown. There are great grocery stores, including larger outlets such as Lucky 97 and Kim Fat Market, plus smaller green grocers, herbalists, Chinese barbecue outlets, bakeries and variety stores.

“Just the food alone, if you want to have dinner there every day, you could go for at least a month without repeating any restaurants,” says Fu.

Fu and the other volunteers with Chinatown Dining Week came up with about 20 possible restaurants, eventually whittling the list down to eight that represent just a few of the food choices available in the area.

If you favour beef brisket in a savoury broth brimming with noodles, you might consider checking out Tony Young’s Gui Lin Noodle House (10626 97 St., 780-497-8280). During Chinatown Dining Week, Young is pairing his bestselling brisket dish with an order of bacon prawn skewers for $15. Diners may also want to consider the Chinatown staple, Padmanadi (10740 101 St., 780-428-8899) which specializes in vegan comfort food from Malaysia and southeastern Asia.

Kanto 98 (10636 98 St., 780-244-7388) riffs on Filipino street food, whereas the Tea Bar Cafe makes upwards of 30 different kinds of Hong Kong street food (in addition to bubble tea). Fu recommends the Whatever Drink at the Tea Bar Cafe for those days when you feel overwhelmed by the dozens of different combinations that make up bubble tea. The staff at the 20-year-old cafe (10640 98 St., 780-424-0696), which was the first bubble tea shop in Edmonton, will surprise you with something tasty upon request.

If you are a fan of hand-pulled noodles from northern China, consider Fuqing Lanzhou Noodles (10824 97 St., 780-760-1110). King Noodle House Pho Hoang (10613 97 St., 780-428-8983) has Vietnamese pho at the centre of the action, and Asian Express Hot Pot (10586 100 St., 780-421-8300) makes a meal of the famous Chinese stew that’s put together within a simmering pot of soup stock right at your table. Namaste India, which recently opened a second location in Chinatown (10023 107 Ave., 780-540-0100), offers a host of curries and samosas.

“Chinatown is not just about Chinese culture. It’s a mixture of a very diverse Asian culture (in Edmonton), too,” says Fu.

Watch for the dining week menus and more details about the restaurants involved within the next few days on the edmontonchinatown.ca website.